Souvenirs from the sea: Sanibel Island shells

If you find a junonia shell on Sanibel Island you make the front page of the local newspaper. You'll also become headline news if you get your hands on a prized lion paw.

Shelling is a serious business on this barrier island on the Gulf of Mexico just offshore of Fort Myers. The island's white, sugary beaches are blanketed in an array of 400 different species of shells: conch, lightning whelks, cockle, scallops, murex, tulips, olives, coquinas. Yet avid seekers are really only looking for the twisted cone shell with giraffe-like spots, the junonia, which is considered a prized find.

This Manhattan-size island is one of the best places in the world for shelling because of its geography. The northern tip swoops northward into the gulf and its beaches catch shells as if it were a fish net. shells and its east-west torque

We head for Bowman's Beach on the north side of the island. At the visitor center, we're told this is one of the island's most secluded beaches but on the day we visit in the midst of spring break it's packed with people walking up and down the beach along the trail of shell debris. Some were in the water holding nets, trying to trap any treasures carried in by the waves. Despite the mad rush, my kids still walk with a robber baron's hoard of shells--although no junonia. Those are rare.

To learn more about shells, we head for the Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum, where exhibit room features a dizzying array of shells from all over the world: cuban snails that look as if they were painted; cowries the size of a man's fist; bright yellow and purple scallops; a conch that looks like a scorpion; and the world's largest horse conch. The horse conch is the largest shelled mollusk found in the Atlantic Ocean, and it's the Florida State Shell.

We catch a demonstration on how to find shells--something we wish we had done before going shelling. We learn that mornings after storms are the best and the docent tells us about a little girl on the island who recently found junonia. "An adult on the beach found a lion paw that day and tried to convince her to trade but she wouldn't," the docent said.

My daughter wants to head back for Bowman's Beach to find her own junonia but unfortunately, we have a long drive to make that afternoon and must move on.